STRENGTH ANALYSIS OF W-SHAPED SCARF REPAIR STRUCTURE IN COMPOSITE MATERIALS

To address the problem of excessive parent material removal in composite scarf repairs, a W-shaped scarf repair structure was proposed. The finite element method was employed to analyze the adhesive layer failure load of conventional scarf repair structures and the V-shaped, W-shaped, and WW-shaped scarf repair structures under tensile loading. The results show that, at a 6° scarf angle, the adhesive failure load of the zigzag scarf repair structure is comparable to that of the conventional design (within ±1.5%), while the material removal area is reduced by 64.15%~76.31%. When the scarf angle is reduced to 3°, the zigzag scarf repair structure exhibits an 8%~14% decrease in load-bearing capacity, but the reduction in adhesive failure load is significantly smaller than the reduction in material removal.